I document my goal to watch 300 movies in 2012

7 x 7 Link Award

It seems I’ve been put up for two of these 7×7 Link Awards from two very talented, handsome individuals. So, first off, huge thanks to Mark (http://mrmarakai.wordpress.com/) and Cinemaniac (http://themoviefreakblog.wordpress.com/). I started this blog on March 3rd, so I’ve been at this for a little over six weeks and I am absolutely in love with it. My original goal to watch 300 movies this year is something I am still striving for, but simply writing my thoughts on the movies I watch is rewarding enough on its own.

Here are the rules I’ve conveniently copy/pasted from other blogs

Rule #1: Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.

Rule #2: Link to one of the posts that I personally think best fits the following categories:Most Beautiful Piece,Most Helpful Piece,Most Popular Piece,Most Controversial Piece,Most Surprisingly Successful Piece,Most Underrated Piece,andMost Pride-Worthy Piece.

Rule #3: Pass this award on to seven other bloggers.

Something no one else knows about me:
I’m lactose intolerant. Actually, I’m not sure what people DO know about me so allow me to introduce myself. My name is Andy, I’m 29 years old and living in the Chicago area. I’ve had a lifelong love affair with movies and I have always wanted to track what I watch in a year, and this was a logical next step above that. In addition to movies, I am a huge video game fanatic, I enjoy music, and bicycling. I’ve been married for about two and half years. I have a miniature poodle named Lebowski.

Most Beautiful Piece
To be honest, I don’t consider anything I’ve written to be beautiful but the most beautiful movie I’ve written about is most certainly Baraka. Watching and then writing about Baraka was bittersweet because I watched it the night my father passed away. Movies are an escape and I wanted to be engrossed in something beautiful. Baraka was perfect.http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/03/06/baraka-11412/

Most Helpful Piece
Again, not really sure if my blog could be considered helpful…Man, this is tough. I’m sure I’ve recommended movies that people haven’t seen, so I suppose recommending an amazing movie would be considered helpful. In that regard, I think my review of Letter Never Sent is my most helpful. I got very little feedback on it, so that’s another reason why I’m bringing it up again here. Seriously, this movie was phenomenal. See it.http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/03/23/letter-never-sent-32212/

Most Popular Piece
I haven’t been doing this for very long so I’m afraid I’m not terribly popular…Yet. One day, world. One day…Anyway, to date my most “liked” and commented review was for Memento. As of this second it’s sitting at 16 likes and 32 comments which I’m pretty pumped about. I do a little dance in my head every time anyone likes one of my posts so this is pretty awesome. Oh, Memento is pretty awesome too. Coincidence?http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/04/18/memento-41412/

Most Controversial Piece
There are two reviews I did that I could consider controversial, one of the films I liked a lot and one I thought was fairly mediocre. The first movie was The Adventures of Tintin which I enjoyed a bit but found it kind of dull. Others seemed to enjoy it quite a bit so I’m not sure if I should give this one another shot or just wait for the inevitable sequel. The film I loved but others did not was Gladiator. The great things about movies is that we can all take away a different experience, so I’m glad to have some differences of opinion that have been civil.http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/03/31/the-adventures-of-tintin-32912/http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/04/10/gladiator-2000-4712/

Most Surprisingly Successful Piece
Without a doubt, my first successful blog is also the one I am the most surprised by. When I watched Troll Hunter I had no idea I would like the movie. I also had no idea so many other people would be interested in it. Troll Hunter is a fine film, don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t think it had the appeal. Chances are, this may have been the first blog of mine you read. http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/03/26/troll-hunter-32312/

Most Underrated Piece
I’m going to go back to one of my early reviews for this, since I was literally an unknown when I wrote it. The 1933 version of King Kong is one of my absolute favorites and I quite like my review of it. I don’t really have anything else to say about it but please read it. In fact, you can find all my old reviews linked in the monthly recap pages linked at the top of the page. I’ve been meaning to go back to all my old reviews and add links to explain my rating, that’s one thing I started doing after I had already written like 40 blogs to help explain what the hell I was rating.http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/03/06/king-kong-1933-11512/

Most Pride-Worthy Piece
Honestly, if I can’t choose Memento again because of its popularity I’d have to choose my blog about the Ebertfest line-up. I am incredibly excited to be going to Ebertfest (5 more days!!!). I didn’t actually contribute a lot to the post, I mostly copied it from Roger Ebert’s own site but I’m just proud that I’m getting to go this year with my good buddy Julian.http://andywatchesmovies.com/2012/03/20/ebertfest-2012-announcements/

As for the seven bloggers I’d like to pass this on to…It’s really tough to pick just seven but here they are in no particular order: